Actress Mila Kunis Keeps it Real

Talking to actress Mila Kunis is a crash course in how to live life on your own terms. How's this for anti-Hollywood: She's been dating the same guy for seven years, still has her natural hair color, and is a proud member of the clean-plate club.

"Do you see this?" She stretches the collar of her sweatshirt over a bare shoulder to reveal a serious-looking scar extending across her throat, a result of "being stupid" on a Jet Ski in Hawaii. It's only one of many battle wounds she's acquired so far. "Let's see," she says, riffling through a laundry list of injuries that would do Johnny Knoxville proud, "I had a snowboarding accident. I fell off a horse. I've had a concussion, a fractured rib.... I walk into walls. I'm always bruised up."

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Welcome to the wonderful world of Mila—an adrenaline junkie and self-professed world-class klutz who won't let a little pain (or injury) keep her from experiencing all the fun life has to offer. Neck scar not withstanding, she looks fairly unscathed today sitting in a low-key health-food joint not far from her home in the Hollywood Hills. Dressed in loose-fitting boyfriend jeans and a gray hoodie, her long dark hair tied back into a haphazard knot, Mila's a bundle of nervous energy—tugging at the stray ends of her tresses while wolfing down a plate of fried eggs and tofu.

Just a few minutes into the meal it becomes clear that Mila talks the way she eats: with gusto. Especially when the topic turns to Hollywood. "[The culture here] isn't based on anything other than 'Who got a boob job done? That's what I feel L. A. is about,'" laments the 26-year-old actress, who's best known for her roles as a spoiled teen queen on the Fox sitcom That '70s Show and a wisecracking hotel clerk in last year's hilarious flick Forgetting Sarah Marshall. "A lot of people here want to be everyone but themselves."

But Mila proudly bucks that trend. Rather than trade on her gorgeous looks, she's made comedy her currency and recently racked up a series of eccentric and egoless roles. She is the voice of Meg Griffin, the painfully awkward high school loser on Fox's animated series Family Guy which kicks off a new season later this month. And in the big-screen comedy Extract also due out this month, Mila takes on a character even closer to the edge: a kleptomaniac and pathological liar who works as a temp for a lusty but married factory owner played by Jason Bateman. "This girl is so crazy," says Mila, who relished every minute of inhabiting such a certifiable nut-job. "Like, OMG, she's got issues!"

Mila knows what it's like to be the outsider. Born in Ukraine, she came with her family to Los Angeles when she was 7. At first everything was a struggle. Thrown into school before she spoke fluent English, Mila gradually picked up the language watching TV shows like The Price is Right and Wheel of Fortune. Things turned around a few years later when her parents enrolled her in an acting class and a talent manager plucked her out of the crowd. Almost instantly, Mila started scoring work in commercials and TV movies, including the critically acclaimed HBO film Gia starring Angelina Jolie as '80s supermodel Gia Carangi (Mila played a young Gia).

That '70s Girl
At 14, Mila was brazen enough to tell the producers of That '70s Show that she was a few years older so they would consider casting her as Jackie, the high school princess. The upside: She nabbed the role and the show took off for an eight-season run. The downside: She went through puberty on national TV. ("It was awful," she recalls. "No one should have her teenage years on video.")

Mila credits her parents with helping her avoid the typical crash-and-burn fate of a child star. "I had a normal upbringing and went to public school," she says. "If I ever, even for a second, started getting a big head, I was brought back to reality pretty quickly. I was working full time and still had to fight for a cellphone. Then the car thing came around. Oh my God! You would have thought I was asking for a private jet! I kicked and screamed, and I got my stupid car. Then I did something dumb and my parents took my keys away. I told them, 'But I have to go to work tomorrow!' And they said, 'You'll figure it out.' Yeah, those are my parents—and that's why I'm pretty grounded."

She's so down-to-earth that at one point she even contemplated trading it all in. "Eight years of doing the same [show] felt like being behind a desk, and I lost my drive," she says. She briefly attended college, but "had an epiphany. I decided I wasn't going to take [my career] so seriously and make my job who I am. I just want to be happy with my life."

Nowadays Mila finds her bliss off-screen by living in alternating extremes. At one end of the spectrum, she's an avid traveler who loves nothing more than to strap on a backpack and explore the world—trips have included Fiji and Korea—often with her older brother, Michael. "I like the way he travels," she explains. "He grabs a map, says, 'Let's walk,' and makes you explore." She takes particular pride in her fearlessness—especially when it comes to downing a plate of mystery meat, of which she has eaten many. "Michael's a foodie like me, so we'll eat our way through everywhere we go," she says. "I'll try anything once—alligator, frog, rabbit. Korea was one of those places where you really don't want to ask what meat you're eating."

But Mila is equally content to loaf around. One of her favorite de-stressing activities: chilling with her "spazzy" group of friends whom she's known since childhood. "We'll hang out by the pool, have mai tais, and roll around in the grass with my dogs," she says.

State of the Union
There is a sagelike quality to Mila, who seems to have a healthy handle on her priorities—which may also help explain how she's managed to pull off a seven-year relationship with actor Macaulay Culkin, 28. That kind of long-term love is practically unheard of in Hollywood, much less among actors so young. "I don't know if I met him at 27 if it would have been a different relationship. We grew up together," she says. Mila keeps the details of their romance on strict lockdown but does allow that their bond has helped her stay stable and out of the Lindsay-Britney fray: "You find a steady rock in your life and that's all you need. We have our ups and downs, but work through them."

Clearly, Mila has cracked the code to having fame and a relatively normal life. "So many people put so much emphasis on what they do that they lose sight of who they are. They fight for something that is so meaningless and frivolous. My whole career could go poof tomorrow and you might never hear of me again."

That's highly unlikely, especially since she's got a handful of movies slated for release next year—among them The Book of Eli a postapocalyptic drama starring Denzel Washington, and the romantic comedy Date Night with Tina Fey, James Franco, and Mark Wahlberg.

But one thing's for sure: No matter where life leads her, things won't be dull. "I'm not boring to be around," Mila declares. "Something will always happen." And she's got the scars to prove it.

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